Last week, Jim McGrath proved that a good photograph can provide the simplest explanation of life’s most profound truths. His shot of the service dog, Sully, lying by the flag draped casket of George Herbert Walker Bush, captured so much of what many instinctively already know — a wordy narration could never convey the depth of […]

Does this line sound familiar? “Strange isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?” You don’t have to be much of a movie aficionado to recognize this gem from Frank Capra’s bittersweet classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” As a film historian commented, […]

“There is one day that is ours…all we Americans go back to the old home…bless that day…Thanksgiving Day an institution.” Taken from “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen,” a classic 1907 short story by O. Henry, these words remind us of all our blessings: family, friends (both living and past) and circumstances. A recent event in the […]

Even in the abstract, this combination is disturbing. Yet, the forces of fate inevitably link the two, often when a child is way too young to fully comprehend the implications of the event. How many parents have agonized over how to tell a child of a close death? At what age can they really grasp […]

What was, used to be, ain’t no more. This Yiddish proverb was one of the central themes of a speech given by the late Nobel Prize winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer (pictured above) over thirty years ago at a university in central Texas. I was lucky enough to be in attendance — but little […]